This invention relates generally to golf playing aids.
Golf players strive to develop the skills that will enable them to strike the ball consistantly along a predetermined line of direction on a trajectory that satisfies the degree of loft in the club face.
The golf instructors who achieve success teaching the art of striking the golf ball effectively are agreed in the main on the basic fundamentals and principles that apply to the functions of golf swing arcs that produce such desirable results.
Golfers will vary in physical dimensions and in temperament and their swing arcs and rhythm patterns also can vary but results may be similarly effective. Swing arcs can be wide-arced, particularly graceful and fluid while some others are abbreviated, compact and quick, but in each case where the results are similarly effective the golfer will be following and applying the same set of basic fundamentals and principles.
Basically, upon setting the club face squarely to the target on the address to the ball, golf instructors are universally agreed that the hands grip the club with the palms facing each other, with the right palm of the right handed player looking down the target line. Thus the club face, the right palm and the back of the left hand are all coincidental in their relationship to the target proper. The professional instructors state too that both hands act in unison; and that the club handle should be gripped primarily with the fingers, and held somewhat diagonally across the palms as the club shaft slopes to the ball. It is essential too they state, that the feet, knees, hips and shoulders be aligned parallel and set squarely to the target line of direction, with the trunk fairly erect. The line of direction is an imaginary line visualized to extend from the target through the ball to continue some distance laterally from the player. The line of direction is an important guide as a control for the direction of travel for the backward and forward swing arcs. Also they refer to that angle of incidence that extends, as a hypotenuse, from the line of direction to the top of the player's shoulder. This angle of slope acts as a guide to set the angular plane for the golfer's swing arc which needs to travel backward and forward, so properly tilted, and following the target line of direction. (see Ben Hogan's 5 Lessons). Reference are made to the coiling up process of the large upper and lower body muscles and their sequential order of doing so around the spine as the vertical axis that creates a torsion force which expends itself explosively when the forward swing arc propels the club head through the ball. (see Carl Lohren's, The One Move To Better Golf).
Thus there are fundamental requirements of physical alignments and swing functions to planar and angular relationships with the target and the line of direction.
Such relationships of the swing arcs to guide lines are difficult to note with certainty by the player or to be conveyed accuately to the player by an attending instructor since the golf swing is essentially very fast. To visualize guide lines and to estimate positional relationships of the golf swing to guide lines while the swing is in progress is often a blurred impression. Swing refinements can be made obvious to the TV viewer when it is stop-fragmented by the camera, but that is not practicable during the game or on a practice tee.